‘And the answer to mine is the answer to your Majesty’s.’
‘My Lord Democritus, am I to laugh when you leave me?’
‘Why, yes, madam, rather than to lament that I outstay my welcome.’
She showed her pleasure; at least, he saw it under the skin. So he left her; and Mary Livingstone, as she said, could ‘fetch her breath.’
Now, as to Mr. Throckmorton—if the Lord James had desired, as assuredly he did, to get his sister to Scotland, unwedded and in a hurry; if the Queen of England desired it—which is certain,—neither could have used a better means than this excellent man. The Queen was in a royal rage when he, with great troubles and many shakings of his obsequious head, was obliged to own the safe-conduct through England refused. She shut herself up with her maids, and endlessly paced the floors, avoiding their entreating arms. They besought her to rest, to have patience, to sit on their knees, consult her uncles of Lorraine. ‘I shall sit in no chair, nor lie in any bed, until I am at sea,’ she promised them, and then cried: ‘What! am I a kennel-dog to the Bastard in England?’
Nothing in the world should stop her. She would go to her country by sea, and as soon as they could fit out the galleys. And she had her way—with suspicious ease, if she had had patience to observe it; for it happened to be the way of three other persons vitally interested in her: the Queen-Mother of France, who wished to get rid of her; the Queen of England, who hoped she would get rid of herself; and the Lord James Stuart, uncomfortably illegitimate, who hid his designs from his own soul, and looked at affairs without seeming to look.
Two galleys and four great ships took her and her adventurous company from Calais, on a day in August of high sun and breeze, with a misty brown bank on the horizon where England should lie. Guns shot from the forts were answered from the ships; to the Oriflamme of France the Scots Queen answered with her tressured Lion, and the English Leopards and Lilies. Of all the gallant company embarked there was none who looked more ardently to the north than she who was to sit in the high seat at Stirling. Let Mary Fleming look down, and Mary Beaton raise her eyebrows; let Mary Seton shrug and Mary Livingstone toss her young head; they are greatly mistaken who suppose that Mary Stuart went unwillingly to Scotland, or wetted her pillow with tears. She cried when she bade adieu to her grandmother—tears of kindness those. But her heart was high to be Queen, and her head full of affairs. How she judged men! What measures she devised! Ask Mary Livingstone whether they two slept of nights, or whether they talked of the deeds of Queen Mary—what she should do, what avoid, how walk, how safeguard herself. She lay in a pavilion on the upper deck, and turned her face to where she thought Scotland should be. But Mary Livingstone showed Scotland her back, and sheltered her Queen in her arms.